Winter is like a dead time for cacti and most succulents. They go dormant and nothing really happens for a few months. But now that spring is here I will have more and more things to show. They all wake up and start growing. There will be flowers, babies and dead bodies.
This is also the time for some to grow their fruits. Not all cacti produce visible fruits and seeds right after the flower is pollinated. Some will only pop the berry the following year.
Mammillarias do that and it looks amazing!
This is Mammillaria Prolifera. I have few of those with slightly different flowers and spines. But they all grow the same way and they all do the same hide and seek trick with fruits.
All the red berries you see here come from flowers that bloomed last summer. After the flower is pollinated the fruit forms, but inside the cactus and it waits. The next year the read berry pops and in the same time the cactus starts to bloom with a fresh set of flowers and getting ready for the next year.
Suzi, time to pick some seeds!
The fruits, when they are ripe are super easy to pick. A light pull and they detach.
Of course everything must be carefully checked by my furry assistant.
This is what I call a team work :)
The seeds are very small. Smaller than othan other cacti, though they all look pretty much the same.
After cleaning all the fruit pulp and few days of drying they can be sown.
Here is Mammillaria glassii that will also create fruits a year after blooming. This is what I shot last year. They will pop later and this years fruits didn't show yet.
Shot with Nikon D5500 + Sigma 105mm lens
All photos and text are my own.
